Although a conference committee won't determine the final budget numbers until later this year, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) plans to hold a special hearing on Thursday to discuss the census budget. Wolf chairs a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee that oversees the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau.

One of the topics to be considered at the hearing is whether the proposed funding bills would threaten the planned rollout of 500,000 wireless handheld devices for census takers to use during the 2010 national census, an aide to Wolf said last week.

Wolf said the reduced funding approved by the House and Senate "would be devastating" to the Census Bureau, although he didn't specify that the cuts would automatically kill the handheld project.

Gauging the impact

Census Bureau officials wouldn't comment about the proposed reductions or the future of the handheld project, saying only that they are monitoring the ongoing budget process. The handheld rollout plans remain intact for now, a bureau spokesman said.